Unsustainable. In less than five years, Port Townsend will burn through its reserves and be unable to maintain its current level of services. Its finances will “fall off a cliff.” Those exact words were used by city staff in its presentation to the joint session of City Council and its Financial Sustainability Taskforce on May 8, 2023.
The graph at the top of this article shows what’s coming. Starting this year, the city will begin consuming its reserves. The burn rate accelerates each subsequent year until in 2028 the city starts dropping through the “policy level” that represents its ability to maintain existing services. You might notice that the graph shows a significant peak during the past couple of years. Those were years of a massive infusion of federal and state money and savings due to cutting staff during the pandemic lock downs. It was an unreal time of external munificence that won’t be repeated
The unpleasant and, for many people, painful solution will necessarily involve raising existing taxes and the imposition of new taxes. This will make the cost of living in Port Townsend rise even faster, hastening the shrinking of the city’s middle class and making life ever harder for workers. Taxes get passed through to everyone one way or another. Port Townsend already is not a family-friendly place; things are going to get worse for households on limited budgets trying to raise children. A higher cost of living exacerbates conditions already faced by employers who cannot attract workers or keep on their payrolls younger people who are forced to choose a community that better fits their paychecks. Higher costs in Port Townsend have also driven out some of the creative class. An older, wealthier demographic emerges, including a greater concentration of people moving here to spend their last years and those with surplus money capable of acquiring second homes.
An alternative would be to put ambitious, costly plans on hold and immediately impose austerity measures. This will be the involuntary consequence anyway if, very quickly, something “radical” is not done. That was the message of Steve King, the city’s public works director. He shared hard truths I can’t remember hearing at any previous city council meeting. He informed council that, “Our tax structure absolutely requires growth.” He said that a “radical” change was needed to achieve a significant rate of growth not seen here in recent memory.
The necessary growth would mean, he said, something like building 75 new homes annually — an unheard of accomplishment under the city’s difficult-to-build regulatory regime. Not discussed at the meeting was radically promoting growth by making Port Townsend much more business friendly in order to attract new employers that would create better jobs than those the tourist trade generates. That requires relaxing business and environmental controls, governing with a very light regulatory touch, and dramatically reducing the cost of doing business here — the opposite of our current high taxation, tightly controlled, closely planned, anti-growth dominant culture.
Five years to go before the city launches off that cliff. It took six years to take a first stab at loosening city codes that were making it difficult to add ADUs — even though the need for housing was declared a “crisis” back in 2017. That same year, the city, with the enthusiastic support and advocacy of its current mayor and deputy mayor, began wasting a pile of money, staff time and public resources on the fiasco of the Cherry Street Project. This supposedly “affordable housing” endeavor has sucked up over $2 million in city funds, bond capacity and land. Entering its seventh year, the project provides housing only to rats, raccoons and the squirrels that I have observed entering the building through holes chewed in the building’s eaves. It is also a publicly-funded place for kids to party and do who-knows-what-else inside the vandalized derelict on the hill over the golf course.
“Lean Thinking”
The May 8 meeting partially focused on how to craft a message to persuade taxpayers to accept a higher tax burden. One slide boasted of steps that have been taken to slow the impending launch into a fiscal abyss.
King informed council it would take at least another $1.5 million annually over future decades to start to turn around the city’s dire streets problem. It will take another $750,000 annually just to keep things from getting worse. The touted “efficiencies,” as anyone with some sense of proportion will realize, are insignificant. The cliff up ahead has been visible since at least the time the current city manager began employment. That’s three years ago, yet this is all that can be claimed in the way of meaningful efforts to cut costs.
Notice that “lean thinking” is cited as an example of an efficiency achieved. What is “lean thinking”? Some kind of thought experiment? An image of an unhealthy overweight person imagining a fit, trim twin in the mirror comes to mind.
At the same time it confronts an impending fiscal crisis, city leaders are spending scarce resources on dreams of a grand new pool and exercise facility. Just a basic pool alone, as was stated during the May 8 meeting, will cost $25 million. Opsis, the Portland, Oregon consultant working for the city, pegs the minimal cost at more than $30 million and running as high as $52.7 million.
The city is also tossing around ideas for remaking the golf course, though it has no money to do anything (already needing volunteers to trim the grass).
And even as a poison hemlock forest again engulfs the Cherry Street Project the city is moving forward on its largest housing project ever – the Evans Vista development. The land was acquired with grants, but the city has shelled out at least $500,000 on consulting services while also using considerable costly staff time for a project that may be a decade away from making the faintest impression on the city’s housing market.
In an act that cannot qualify as “lean thinking,” in October 2022 council approved a large increase in compensation for the city manager, John Mauro. They boosted his salary by 10% and threw in a “retention bonus” of $12,500. They also increased his vehicle allowance and doubled the city’s contractual obligation to provide severance pay from 6 to 12 months. Not long after this act of municipal generosity, Mauro went on a five-week vacation.
Mauro’s base salary is now $189,297, up from his starting salary mid-2020 of $156,000. In addition to his base salary, he also gets 13% of his salary contributed to his retirement account, almost $25,000 annually at his current rate of pay. When he was hired, he received a $20,000 relocation allowance to move him here from New Zealand. His current automobile allowance of $6,600 is equivalent to driving more than 10,000 miles, at the current IRS business mileage rate. One could reasonably wonder how and why the city manager is driving more than 10,000 miles annually on city business. How is that possible? For background on Mr. Mauro, please see our report, Who is John Mauro, Port Townsend City’s Manager?, in which his previous employer in Auckland contradicted published claims about the job Mauro held as an employee of that city.
Just three days before the meeting with the Financial Unsustainability Taskforce, city council had to admit it was going to blow its 2023 budget. It approved a “supplemental” budget that recognized the need for an additional $4.7 million above what had been anticipated. Bills from consultants drove the budget-busting, er, supplemental measure. These consultants are being used to advance the Mountain View pool/rec center and golf course projects. Council was also told that expensive consultants were doing work normally done by staff engineers, as the city has been shorthanded in that department.
At the same time it was claiming it needed more money to pay consultants to fill holes in its engineering department (not to be confused with filling holes in the streets), the city hired a new marketing manager. She will work on “engaging the public,” according to a Peninsula Daily News report, on “decisions including the Port Townsend Golf Course, an aquatics center, streets, housing and…” (get this) “financial sustainability.” In other words, she will be working on selling the public on projects the city acknowledges it cannot currently afford and trying to convince taxpayers to accept tax increases for the sake of “sustainability.”
Recently the city sought to recruit a Director of People and Performance, with a salary ranging from $107,00 to just over $130,000. Desperately needed licensed engineers with a minimum of 6 years experience, meanwhile, were being offered jobs starting at under $75,000, with a top range of $92,000. The opening for Director of People and Performance position has been closed. The city is still looking for three engineers and a Deputy Public Works Director/City Engineer. In the meantime, more expensive consultants are doing those jobs and/or services are being curtailed.
As for that Cherry Street Project, in August 2022 it looked like the city would sell the building and property. City staff projected the sale might net $320,000. City council was going to decide whether to impose conditions on the purchaser that required them to build a certain number of “affordable” units, or unload the property for the best deal that could be had. The city has already passed up a $1 million cash offer. City Manager Mauro blew off Keith and Jean Marzan of Morgan Hill who offered to bail the city out of the mess it had created for itself and pledged to build affordable housing on the site (see our report). When Mauro presented the history of the Cherry Street Project to city council last year, he failed to mention that he had rejected this cash offer, which was about three times more than the city could hope for now. I spoke with a council member immediately after the meeting. She said she had never been informed of the $1 million cash offer that Mauro dismissed.
(On May 15, the City Council during its business meeting went into executive session to discuss a real estate sale or lease. The property in question was not identified during the meeting.)
Whether it sells the property or not, until 2040 the city will be making annual payments of $61,896 on its $1.4 million bond principal and interest obligation assumed to rehab the 70-year building barged across the Strait of Juan de Fuca from Victoria, B.C. Netting $320,000 from a sale would be swallowing about a $2 million loss (the land alone was valued at $600,000 by the city in 2017).
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Cherry Street Project, May 2023. Top two photos, back of building; bottom photo, front view.
Taxes and More Taxes
Even with the annual 1% increase in property taxes city council always imposes, in five years the city heads into “red ink,” in the words of Mayor David Faber. Just treading water — not demanding more from taxpayers already paying high taxes — means red ink washes ashore very soon. Streets will continue to deteriorate and services will decline. Intermittently and futilely patching crumbling streets guarantees even more costly repairs down the road. Public Works Director King said in the May 8 meeting that replacing a failed street, as Lawrence Street has become, costs 4-5 times more than required to properly maintain a street. He said that F Street and San Juan Avenue “are next” for failure. “We will,” he said, “continue to see those streets go down, and pretty much [then] the whole town is shot, not just the side streets.”
The kind of growth King intimated is necessary to prop up the city’s existing fiscal structure is not going to happen in the time remaining before the edge of the cliff is under city leaders’ toes.
If the city sold all available disposable land identified by city staff, an option discussed at the meeting, it could raise maybe $2 million. The Cherry Street Project was not identified as one of those properties. But even adding the possible proceeds from sale of that failed project, it is still not enough to avert the upcoming cliff dive.
An idea was floated to lease space at City Hall and charge a rental fee for the pool, raising maybe – maybe – $150,000 annually. That’s a big if and would put the city in competition with private landlords for some uses. As mentioned, getting streets into sound condition will cost $1.5 million a year for a long time. The aquatic center city leaders want will require, according a May 10 Leader article, an annual subsidy of $750,000 “for the base option.”
Some “efficiencies” were suggested, along the lines of the “efficiencies” listed above. Let’s be serious. None of this would make much of an impact. Not on the list, by the way, are salary freezes or more modest annual raises. The trajectory off that fast-approaching precipice incorporates maintaining annual 4.5% to 5% raises for staff.
That leaves raising or adding taxes. The Sustainability Task Force and city staff have plenty of ideas on how to get more out of homeowners, shoppers, business owners, renters… everybody.
Those ideas include the obvious: raising property taxes. A proposal was discussed to raise property taxes by $.50 for every $1,000 of assessed value, and adding this to the basis for annual 1% overall property tax increases. That would mean a $250 increase in the first year for a property assessed at $500,000, which would then increase annually thereafter. This would be a permanent tax increase.
Other ideas for bringing in more money to city coffers: raising the water, sewer and stormwater utility tax; increasing taxation of electric and telephone services; a higher B&O tax; charging parking fees on 500 parking spaces (which requires additional enforcement and administrative costs); increasing user fees; imposing a “transportation benefit district” sales tax; imposing a “transportation benefit district” license fee; imposing a $5,000 per housing unit impact fee; enacting a metropolitan park district property tax; imposing a parks and recreation district levy; imposing a parks and recreation service area levy; collecting a public facilities district sales tax; adding an affordable housing sales tax; and raising development service fees.
This was one of the most important city council sessions in years. It received decent coverage by Peter Seagall of the Peninsula Daily News. It was ignored by the city’s own newspaper. Staff’s PowerPoint presentation is here. You can view and hear the entire 2.5 hour meeting at this link. You will hear city leaders laughing and joking. Yet the situation is so serious that having the county take over the city’s police department, parks, library, planning and engineering services was presented for consideration.
Here is the full list of our reporting on the Cherry Street Project since our first article:
Unhappy Birthday: Cherry Street Project Turns Five Years Old 5/9/22
The Tragedy of the Cherry Street Project, 12/12/18
What’s Happening With the Cherry Street Project? 10/29/19
“Completely Bogus” Numbers–More Problems and Delays for Cherry Street Project, 12/2/19
Multi-Million Dollar Fraud on Taxpayers: The Cherry Street Project Unmasked, 6/27/20
Cherry Street Welcomes First Tenants, 2/28/20
Default the Cherry Street Project Now, 4/22/20
Latest Cherry Street Giveaway Hits Taxpayers Harder, 10/2/20
Cherry Street Project Handover “Not a Done Deal,”10/19/20
Accomplished Developer Will Donate Time and Services for Cherry Street Project, 10/20/20
Cherry Street Handover: Red Flags About Bayside Housing, 3/3/21 (and related articles)
Happy Fourth Birthday, Cherry Street Project! 5/10/21
Cherry Street Project Costs Soar in Bayside Housing Proposal, 6/23/21
New Majority on Council Should Kill the Cherry Street Project, 11/27/21
Cherry Street Project Vandalized, 1/4/22
“Incredibly Expensive” Housing Project Follows Cherry Street Debacle, 1/6/22
Mayor Faber (Almost) Opens Up on Cherry Street Project Failure, 4/23/22
Jim Scarantino was the editor and founder of Port Townsend Free Press. He is happy in his new role as just a contributor writing on topics of concern to him. He spent the first 25 years of his professional life as a trial attorney, then launched an online investigative news website that broke several national stories. He is also the author of three crime novels. He resides in Jefferson County. See our “About” page for more information.
Just as we were about to publish this article, a PDN story today came to our attention:
Port Townsend launches financial video series
Public engagement sought for sustaining city
PT’s new Communications and Marketing Manager, who began work on May 4, has hit the ground running with “a creative approach to allowing everyone to come up to speed quickly with the Financial Sustainability Initiative.”
Read “More Taxes Initiative”? While streets crumble, the city schemes to spend millions on a new aquatic facility, the golf course, a massive housing project.
The spin is evident throughout the PDN article.
The honest admission in Steve King’s presentation to council that city finances are poised to “fall off a cliff” has been spun by City Manager Mauro as “the city is in a solid financial position but…”
Solid financial position? Here’s the “but”:
In response, the new five-video series from our just-hired marketing manager is aimed at “engagement,” says Mauro.
As Jim suggests, rather than the city discussing a long-overdue belt-tightening, it would appear the public is being prepped for more taxation. We saw with the Streateries fiasco how well the city actually listened to the public (not). Will this effort at “engagement” — now aided by an in-house marketing professional — be any different?
So, we again need to ask why, when a City parking study said millions and millions of dollars were lost over 10 years due to lost business access, your “sustainability” focused City Manager kept the status quo with approval from City Council. “Award winning” past City Manager Timmons left the engineered mess. Sandoval the 3 time appointed mayor and real estate interests benefitted. Guess Mauro and Company didn’t feel the need for the B&O tax dollars from those lost sales. Losses accomplished by ignoring laws and codes.
Thanks to Jim for pointing out the raises, and car allowance increase for Mauro, and hiring of a new spin doctor.
Timmons went on to be the “fixer” at the crime scene at Fort Worden for the FWPDA. No one seemed to notice.
Part of my comment form the May “Off Topic”.
“Feeding local mainstream media Mauro approved tasty sound bites that the distracted majority will swallow is the job that Shelley, the new official “story teller” (Mauro’s words) takes on. Shelley was previously Executive Director of the Jefferson County Historical Society. A proven team player.
Shelley agrees to be the mouthpiece for a corrupted city government that purposefully damages business access and created a culture of me first, with magic mess tents and more. Good gig. Seems Mari at Main Street and the Chamber are already spending tax money on marketing and other things. Is Main Street, funded with city tax money, failing to do the job? Are more city resources needed? Is this a priority? Do we need more people who can’t find parking? Apparently so.
Does anyone want to remind Council and Mauro that PT has a population of only 10,452 people to tax and pay for Mauro’s growing “team”? Are there not more than 10,452 potholes?
Spin that, Shelley. “Potholes sure are resilient! Historically potholes and bad roads harken back to the earliest days of Port Townsend, are historically accurate, and a green answer to traffic calming. Remember that current city government has been hugely successful with controlling horse and oxen manure on the streets”.
Bullshit seems to still be an issue.”
Recently I read of the passing of the author of “Four Arguments Against Television”. He was a man that early in his working life realized he was not interested in pressing people to consume more or to labor earning a living – the function of his very capable advertising skills. He spent his talent and life informing the community of humans about their relationships with earth’s living systems. He did this mostly by collaborating with movers and shakers in the world of culture, nature clubs, and peace movements. His name was Jerry Mander.
As I read Jim Scarantino’s piece on the trajectory of Port Townsend’s financials going over the cliff in five years, the concept of gerrymandering seemed appropriate. The Mauro management of this little town over the last three years seems more a function of hip phrases and smooth, passive-aggressive boostering than thoughtful budget management; a gerrymandering of our memories and history, tooled into a 21st century business model.
Early on smiley Mr. Mauro photos and slick patois could be seen at every media chance: City newsletter; weekly on the radio. The City’s computer presence is continually combed and groomed along with the comprehensive plan updates; the lingo in reports is often wrapped in feel-good generalizations and inclusive engagement messaging; once accessible city documents now ensconced in mazes for only the most persistent and clever to suss out.
It appears the most important priority of the ambitious Mr. Mauro is to create images you won’t forget – the exact message in Jerry Mander’s book. Thus the assuring and smiling manager and his hires are offering new and wonderful experiences through images to rejigger the functions and buildings of our “old” golf course and “old” Mt. View School/campus and pool – the fun we will have when these “old” assets become debt-ladened collateral. What could go wrong? Common sense and stewardship would be appropriate in these economically treacherous times.
Hi Julie- Well done.
Your take on how Mauro was marketed when he started is spot on. He was a star according to the Misleader and PDN. Sandoval said he was “very modern”, so are UN agenda 21 and 30. She said he “had the Northwest in his blood”. Meaningless sound bites from a shallow well. There was a big ceremony at the then new no public input 1.2-million-dollar Visitor Center Plaza to show off the shiny new “sustainability” tool. Here to sustain the status quo.
This is how we do it. Talk community and public input and do as we wish. See Mauro’s plethera of dead end ways to “engage” with him. Timmons retired just to re appear at Fort Worden was given an award. Exactly what was award winning about the mess he left with help from Sandoval and other key folks like appointed mayors Stinson and King remains a mystery to most.
We should not forget that the City Council, our neighbors, are the supposed to be the horse. Organically from, connected to, in touch and reflecting their community. Mauro should be the cart but is expected not to be by our trusted neighbors on Council. One Council member told me early on that Mauro “was cut from different cloth”, as though that was a good thing. The original local cloth with shed boys, Town Tavern and a funky feel was cotton, Levi jeans material. Now we have the artificial polyester you described so well.
Damaging policies and “fixing” what is not broken as monuments to self comes from a broken system that for 20 years had one policy influencing City Manager, Timmons, and a 20 year Council member appointed as mayor by Council 3 times, Sandoval of Windermere. They left the rutted road that leads to the cliff ahead. In 3 years’ time Mauro didn’t see it coming and advise Council. That seems to me to be the actual job of a city manager. From day one to assess what he took over and work for all of the people. Not just some.
I have for years said we needed term limits on Council, and an elected mayor. Not fool proof, there are plenty of fools to sort through. If only we had a local legacy paper that dug a little deeper. We also need to end the celebrity status of City Manager and understand the longer someone stays in this position the more corruption can flourish. Mauro is no star. No amount of expensive propaganda makes that so. Mauro betrayed all businesses and my community from day one. Then doubled down with mess tents with help from Council. Different cloth indeed.
I submit that Council needs gene therapy to grow spines and brains. Then they could send Mauro off to run a bike shop and put Public Works Director King in his position. No hype. No slickboy smileylies. Just doing a professional job without agendas.
The ultimate responsibility lies with your neighbors who somehow were and are elected and re elected as the cliff drew ever nearer and they had no clue. Due to the tool they hired and follow.
They are-
David Faber- Appointed Mayor and self-described deviant.
Amy Howard
Owen Rowe
Libby Wennstrom
Aislinn Palmer
Monica MickHager
Ben Thomas
Great job, team!
Well you got what you voted for Jeffco, I had to put my rig in 4 wheel drive on the road to the dump ….who’s running this place anyways?
I’m always puzzled when our readers drop the line “you got what you voted for…”
For one thing, in this case, Jim’s article is about the city, not JeffCo. County residents did not get to vote for city electeds.
But county residents did try last fall, at least a third of them, to vote out incumbents who are faithful stewards of the continued shoe-horning in of the censorship/pharma/bankster/global/woke industrial complex — to no avail. We are outnumbered.
It’s unlikely that any regular readers of the PTFP voted for anyone in power in the city at the moment.
So please, do us a favor… whenever you feel the urge to post a comment “you got what you voted for” to the PTFP, take a few moments to redirect your message to the legacy media, where you’ll actually be talking to who voted for those in leadership positions. Of course, they won’t print it. But at least you won’t be shaming a crowd who doesn’t deserve it.
I’ve been patiently waiting for the city to run itself into the ground, become unsustainable, and go belly up for about 40 yrs now. I’m busy playing the world’s tiniest violin for them right now. 🙂
The Cherry Street project, “the vandalized derelict on the hill over the golf course”, should serve as a constant reminder that Port Townsend is ruled by malevolent forces. Great Reset Totalitarians are dedicated to destroying clean, safe, attractive residential middle and working class neighborhoods. One that includes a golf course would be especially offensive to them. This occupation government demonstrates its power by trashing everything valued by their despised subjects. Remember the decrepit streateries which were strategically located to maximize blight?
Although most government officials who enable the blight are not evil, they have been captured by destructive forces. These same forces now control all tax funded institutions AND they are supported by the majority of registered voters. Nothing changes until some critical mass of productive residents decides to reclaim their right to exist. (Critical mass is not the same as 50+% of registered voters which includes people not actually aware, involved, or capable of actively participating in a community.)
For starters, please stop referring to government officials as “our leaders”. The ability to win an election requires the same skillset as any sales or marketing occupation – not any ability to lead or govern.
Learn from Olympia and other unfortunate cities where well-meaning volunteers were guilt-tripped into enabling drug vagrants to turn livable communities into dystopian hellholes.
MJ Heins makes a good point that just because we were elected, that doesn’t make us “leaders.” It’s a rare local election that involves any real choice, so in a way, we don’t even know what the people want from their representatives. For example, no one opposed the four City Council incumbents running this year, not even to at least debate the issues in that forum. I suspect that more people in PT feel similarly to the readers here than we are led to believe. Just a hunch based upon what I hear from people.
Good read and all too typical in small towns. I’ve seen architectural “monuments” break businesses and town budgets.
Shame
Hi Jim Scarantino, nice to see your writing here again!
I just wanted to thank you for commenting on the city and county once again, trying to create a Fitness and wellness center/aquatic center… According to their “capital cost summary “, the swimming pool is now considered the “base model “and was actually projected at $37.6 million!
I attended their live meetings, and attended their web meetings as well. At the last meeting at Fort Worden in ‘The Commons’ earlier in May, someone did ask about how they came up with the financial projections for revenue. The only reply was they could not answer that because that was someone else’s department and he wasn’t there. (But no doubt subsidized by our taxes.)
It feels as if they’re glorifying this project, and they are definitely expecting income from tourists as well within their projections. I feel as if they’re planting the seed that it’s going to be this wonderful community project… As if people don’t even understand, that they will have to pay to go to it. They’ll pay with their taxes whether they want to or not, and then they’ll pay more if they actually want to use it.
A dozen years ago when ‘Make Waves’ was the name behind this project, it eventually got thrown out/dropped because it was discovered that nothing was ever to be built on Kai Tai Lagoon… (paperwork that was lost at the Jefferson County courthouse was found in Olympia).
I don’t pretend to know politics at all, but attending these meetings and listening to all of these people talk was very disheartening.
And the small handful of people in Jefferson County that use the current pool, they just want a pool, they don’t want an entire monstrosity of a fitness/wellness center, but the people on city Council/management/county commissioners, keep pushing for the full meal deal, just under 54,000 ft.² and just under $53 million.
Perhaps they’ll put a roundabout in front of it.
The lead article sounds factual and likely mostly is. Sadly, Scarantino did not throw the former manager into the potholes he ignored for his 20 years of driving the city into the ditch. And yes, recent councils were bamboozed and misinformed, but I won’t excuse council leaders from the burgeoning debacle. Another sadly, councilors are very poorly paid to represent us in making complicated decisions. Worse, the last council set up a committee to recommend council pay and reached the conclusion that council is paid enough. The result is a council not compensated to do the deep and time-consuming dig. The result is solutions the manager and staff mostly determine.
It’s really easy to find fault. It takes deep dives to find solutions and then sell them to an ignorant electorate. What Scarantino’s article and all the succeeding comments do is the easy part; they completely lack are any proposed solutions to a deeply frightening financial problem.
Let me propose one that has been in front of council for more than 20 years but they’ve been scared to touch as will likely be evidenced by comments to this! Without going into much detail, the city leaves nearly $2M lying in streets of the most valuable land in Jefferson County, downtown PT. Adjacent to the streets rents are $2+/foot/month. Yet we continue to provide the 80,000 square feet of public street, the most valuable asset we have, so people can park for free. And yet, within our “parking problem” is a management solution with the opportunity to tax visitors for our benefit.
Parking issues are HUGELY complicated which is why they haven’t been addressed properly. Happily, many cities around the world both large and small are finally taking it on for the many indirect problems it creates: sprawled development, toxic runoff, poor health, GHG emissions, housing costs, huge maintenance costs sprawled utilities, and equity.
In case you think charging for parking creates a burden on the poor. Consider that a community and culture where one MUST own a car to fully participate is in itself a huge burden on the poor. Alternatively, we could use some of the generated revenue left after operations and maintenance to subsidize our struggling transit system for greater service.
Yes. The city has a huge problem bearing down on us, not it. Kudos to our representatives and staff for honestly exposing it.
Council’s manager, his hires and volunteer advisory commissions and committees must do the deep diving to provide council with realistic, prioritized capital planning based on State growth projections and in accordance with the Comprehensive Plan. Council must understand process and be familiar with the Comp Plan just like all of the unpaid and able community activists. Burke, Obee, Scarantino, Walker and others are no slouches at research and reading budgets. They provide civic input that is essential to good governance.
One of the manager’s first big moves was to budget time and money planning to remove the poplars along Sims Way, ignoring over $11M in unfunded street repairs. And now he is full tilt into golf course and aquatic center planning; for some reason believing that recreation and park access in Port Townsend is lacking. Council’s hire has finagled his compensation and his pet projects promoting his personal ambitions devoid of common sense, honest community participation, or willingness to work within budgets. And then there are all the contracted specialists and his new expanded staff to help plan and sell his projects.
Last August the current city council led by the mayor and manager ( paid almost as much as the governor of the State) encouraged behavior causing chaos in PT; allowing a mob of hundreds to go unchecked by police. What was the price tag including assistance from highway patrol and sheriffs, the year long investigations and failed prosecutions?
The “struggling” transit system was a debacle for years prioritizing a $5M office miles from town with a concrete parking area, ignoring then dissolving the dedicated volunteer advisory board with all its transit experience.
State engineering standards for big cities seem to be used on infrastructure projects in this small town – see all the new, overwide, impervious, carbon intense concrete sidewalks, excessive street lighting, huge storm water basins,
roundabouts forested with signage and necessary gardening supplied by staff, not volunteers.
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And then there are all the contracted specialists.
This town has revenues and an annual budget, a comprehensive plan and a capital plan – that’s the homework for city council. It is responsible for the hiring of one person, the city manager, to operate within the parameters of the budget using the adopted plans as guidance representing the will of the community.
Hi Scott-
Regarding solutions and not just “easily” finding fault-
I have told this before and I will tell it again. Many years ago, I was speaking with a PT police officer regarding parking problems during Timmons 20 years as city manager and Sandoval’s 20 years on Council and 3 time mayor. I do often credit Timmons for his legacy and note that legacy led to his current position with the FWPDA. Go figure.
The police officer knew, as he said, city government was a “self-licking ice cream cone”. As a past military officer, he said to me to always offer solutions if you bring up a problem, as he told those under him. I have always said this and said it to him. The solution has 3 parts., I say it often. If only for the record.
1)Planning-2) Education-3) Enforcment.
Whatever inexplicable reasons there are, none of those 3 things have been attempted for 10 years now. However, Mauro and Faber tried to make mess tents taking valuable parking spaces permanent and purposefully did minimal public notice.
An insider would benefit, just as no parking enforcement benefits real estate interests. See self-licking ice cream cone.
So there has purposefully been no planning. The most recent and ignored study shows lost millions. As a past police volunteer said and I have posted in this forum, the volunteer parking enforcement that once existed was purposefully “dumbed down” and eliminated.
So, if there is no will, there will be no way. The corner stone of fault. Other towns seem to manage to deal with parking planning and execution.
You bring up good points, but the solutions are not that complex if one has qualified and motivated staff and council. Can good planning and execution be done if there is no will to do so and council follows a newer city manager continuing to pretend parking simply does not exist? So, back to the focus of this article, are finances falling off a cliff, or are they being pushed by self-licking ice cream cones in denial?
Scott, Thanks for your comment. The article was intended to report on the dire situation being ignored by the Leader and the severity of which did not quite make it into the PDN’s reporting. I set out to do an anniversary piece on the Cherry Street Project and saw that the irresponsibility of that fiasco as symptomatic of the underlying problem. I briefly touched on solutions–common sense to anyone. If a family can’t maintain its house with the income it has, it doesn’t go build a pool in the backyard or sink money into the vacant lot next door in the hopes it will build an apartment building. The city is broke, yet its aristocracy wants all these huge expensive monuments to their rule that will not pay for themselves. The pool, if it is ever built, will be painted in red ink. Even after laying out tens of millions the city does not have, the city will still have to subsidize operations annually for $750,000 (the amount of a basic roads maintenance program to keep streets from falling apart). When Evans Vista is built, it will be nontaxable. Yet it will require more police services and infrastructure maintenance. The city continues to spend, spend, spend. Yes, the problems go back for years under Sandoval/Timmons. But the graph shows reserves were not being consumed during those years. PT is spending more than ever without growth to match. It is not a “Strong Town” by any measure. That is a longer discussion for the future. You must certainly realize that the man (city manager Mauro) who blew off a $1 million cash offer for the Cherry Street Project (not even reporting it to council) and two of the people who pushed that project and have expressed no regret (Mayor Faber and Deputy Mayor Howard) are in charge of the city’s current trajectory over the cliff.
One last word on parking revenue possibilities: the city staff projected maybe $320,000 annually. That is the gross amount. It will be reduced by administrative costs, such as installing meters and paying parking enforcement. Of course, the city could also make money by collecting fines when parking fees go unpaid. That also requires administrative costs, and, I would guess, impacts the Prosecuting Attorney’s budget by demanding staff time.
Scott, as for city council compensation, are you saying we should not expect them to serve competently, intelligently and prudently unless they get paid more? By seeking elective office, knowing it was virtually a volunteer position, did they not pledge to serve competently, intelligently and prudently on those terms? If they won’t honor that standard now, or just can’t measure up because they lack skills, education and the kind of mind the job requires, why should we assume they will suddenly metamorphose into good legislators if they get a couple grand more? That is a genuine question. Have Faber or Howard blamed their gross negligence in promoting the Cherry Street Project on a lack of what they perceive to be adequate compensation? Nope. They have stood by their decision to yoke taxpayers to that white elephant.
Jim,
Though Brian tries, clearly the Leader is barely functioning as a news source. They miss much that should be reported. The Transportation Lab held a one-day conference on how transportation affects housing, climate, equity, health, commercial vitality, and gov’t finances a couple of weeks ago where almost 100 people attended. We had four different speakers who are leaders in their field, many electeds and staff, and many interested citizens. The Leader, our “newspaper of record”, did not send a reporter the 2 blocks between their office and the conference. No other news source attended or made mention of it.
Yes. Staff reported parking fees could generate $320K annually. I firmly believe they are off by a factor of 3 to 6. “Back of the napkin” figuring: 500 spaces times a modest $1/hour times a modest 8 hours/day times 30 days/month times 12 months times 80% equals $1.152M/year. Questions to be resolved:
Is an average of $1/hour the right amount to ensure a 15% vacancy- 1 space per block per side?
Would some spaces get double revenue from a car leaving with time left?
The cities that have instituted paid parking so to manage a scarce commodity have, if done right, blossomed. See Shoup’s “Small Change” pdf. or
https://parkade.com/post/donald-shoup-the-high-cost-of-free-parking-summarized
Managing our parking policy better is not the panacea, but it is a necessary piece of solving a plethora of issues related to our car culture’s impacts.
Scott and Jim-
I appreciate the information you are providing. Most can understand that the commodity of parking has costs and overhead. Part of that is planning, education, and maintenance in the form of enforcement as a last resort. And now considerable cost to repair what was purposefully left to degrade.
The Port Townsend specific problem is the change in culture brought about by simply ignoring parking and those responsible in city government (our neighbors on council) not understanding or ignoring negative ripple effects.
I am in the trenches full time and see visitors mistreated with false signage and have seen numerous new and established businesses simply have owners and employees park on the street. Crapping in their own nest taking the parking of those that pay the wages and rent. Customers. It is the purposeful strangling of common sense resulting in economic damage and friction in this community.
Planned destabilization could not be more effective.
Any fix has to understand the manufactured handicaps that key folk manipulated into existence. Simply put if you don’t mow your lawn, fairly soon you have trees growing that no lawn mower can deal with. This covers many issues locally in addition to parking.
In the historic district the powers that be have added the Marine Science Center which hopes for thousands of new visitors a year. In addition, last I knew there were plans for removal of a paid Port lot for a new building for boat related visitors. Eliminate parking and bring in more visitors. It was claimed the paid parking port lot was not used much. As the link Scott provided explains no one will pay for parking when free parking is close. The free parking in this case is city managed posted but not enforced 2 hour parking. Plans for the Hastings building last I knew would need even more parking. Seems to be that there will be more ripple effects on all business access. Manufactured ripples.
Just something to keep in mind. In my experience those that broke it deny it and are the last ones not capable of fixing it. If you don’t maintain the roof, you will soon need a whole new house.
The roof is shot on many fronts in Port Townsend. The idea that those who manufactured road issues, affordable housing issues, parking issues and more will now be involved in Evans Vista is almost comical. If you can’t deal with the manufactured mess of Cherry Street, what qualifies you to be involved in Evans Vista? The reason that land is available is the odor from the paper mill. Seems no one is looking ahead to lawsuits and livability issues from that. Truth in advertising says call the development Stanky Ridge.
To work on anything, you need to assess your tools. Most here have proven to be fairly dull PT deer staring into the headlights.
Thanks to those working on solutions. The deer could have the courtesy to simply keep out of the way. Or not. Who will be running for re election?
I have to say that this informative article and the perceptive comments are very hard for me to read. I could quibble about this intention or that fact, but that would be more of a distraction from the important points made. This forum gets dismissed by so many, especially those closest to the campfire, but it provides the deepest content of anything I’ve read locally.
Perceptions aside, just dealing with the information provided here and what it means for living in Port Townsend, y’all are getting right to the point, and I’m afraid that most of the criticism is justified. As a local resident I would get tired of my excuses and the entitled arrogance of some of the others. I think it was Harvey above referencing the archetypical cart and horse analogy of city government vis-a-vis council. I have to say that sometimes it feels like the horse has decided to just climb into the cart and ride it down the hill.
All this can be true even if the intentions are more genuine than they may appear, both with council and city government. But I know intentions aren’t enough. Real elections with real choices would help clarify the mandate for those elected. But in each election cycle almost every race is unopposed. Of course in a representative democracy, the citizen’s role is not completed at the ballot box. For those with the energy and time, I promise that showing up at the meetings does make a difference.
Hey Ben-
To boldly go where no City Council member has gone before. Smiles to you Ben. We are here to learn from each other.
Those I know who provide mutual respect know one thing. Things are fairly simple in our unforgiving world. Job done or job not done. Competent or incompetent. When you have to deconstruct inability with built in momentum going back decades, that became the norm, it’s almost too late. “Engage Port Townsend” is what you and other City Council need to be doing. Not hiring a cart with agendas to follow who’s every other word is resilience and can’t look me in the eye and talk parking. I long for the good old days when parking was all that was on my radar.
A person who commented here a few years ago brought up the fact that few who were concerned and might help bring about some changes to the status quo were willing to run for City Council. Sandoval, Timmons and negative legacies were discussed.
You bring up the same point regarding filling Council seats. Overwhelmingly those that do run have the need not to alienate themselves from the toxic status quo insider “community”. Some don’t understand the self-imposed ceiling they stand under and jump into the cart when they should be the horse. Some say it is not needed to enter the temple and overturn the tables. Look around without letting the ceiling hamper your perceptions.
Here is an example of a fix I could do that I don’t think is being explored. I have two older couples who cannot really afford the rent or maintain 2 affordable rentals I have, even with below market rents. Rather than evict them, why can’t I provide the “Coach” option in beautiful, natural settings? Making sure there are no negative impacts. Devil in details, details manageable.
I wonder if any horses, city or county might consider this for affordable housing for the appropriate folks in need in some locations. The lowest cost stick built tiny homes on wheels I know of are around $100,000. A new $38,000 32-foot trailer with a bump out that makes the center feel open can be purchased for $5000 down and around $450 per month. Don’t judge sight unseen. I looked at one that has a queen bed in its own room, and full bath with skylight over the shower. It has a main room with plenty of Amish made nice real wood cabinets, quartz epoxy counter tops, leather recliners, a solar panel that powers the fridge and lights with backup power easy to hook up to. It has a gas stove and oven, a built-in microwave and stainless-steel sink. It can be self-contained or connected to water, septic or sewer. Settings can be private, park like, and not seen from the road. Environmental impact can be minimal. If removed, you would never know one was ever there. I could put many on my land and impact very little. Those who are judged because only drug camps exist for them could have a place to be. They could even own that movable place. Rules? Impact others negatively and you have to go. Many problems could easily be cultivated. If desired. Or prevented. If desired. Many solutions could be cultivated. If desired. Or prevented. If desired.
What if I could offer similar to others? What if many people did? For appropriate folks in need in appropriate no impact settings.
Just one out of the box solution for the horses in city and county might consider, using the best common-sense planning and execution of course. I am gearing up to find out what the County might allow or prohibit. Hopefully no one will look at other failures and say this idea would surely be one as well. Depends on the horses and carts I suppose.
I really do think Evans Vista will eventually be called Stanky Ridge. Strong draft horses needed. Carts in different manifestations abound, proof is no one is mentioning the stank. In lots of places.
Harvey, I’m with you on your RV/trailer solution. I’ve been researching and nudging that notion around behind the scenes for over a year now to see how viable (and passable as an ordinance) that is. Frankly a lot of crucial housing in the City — but especially in the County — is on a “don’t ask permission, ask forgiveness” status. If we all lived in homes adhering to current code, PT would be a city of 2,500. Maybe. This is the hidden reality that we live in. By that token, I like your golden rule: “impact others negatively, and you have to go.” That’s pretty much all that matters at the end of the day.
Great to be talking about solutions Ben. Real economically viable solutions individuals can take into their own hands to help out others. It seems the most difficult aspect of trailers or RV’s can be septic. RV’s and trailer output and or tanks are separated into grey water, sink and shower run off, and black water from toilets. Grey water can be dispersed in many situations especially if using appropriate detergents or making a grey water run off area with gravel drain field.
Black water can be pumped by using a mobile system of a larger tank on a vehicle. Like getting your in ground septic pumped out but on a much smaller scale and on a different schedule.
Another option is routing into existing septic systems. Many systems are designed to accommodate a 3 bedroom home. Many homes have less use of the system due to many variables. A 3 bedroom home can have 5 or so people using the septic system to its max. Other homes may have only one or two people not producing lots of grey and black water into the system. Allowing hook up onto existing systems that are not over used can fulfill the need not to over use any specific system.
RV’s and trailers by nature conserve the use of water and outflow. Mindful people can add to efficiency. 30 amp power can run about 100 feet from a source.
The ask forgiveness approach is out there for sure. No harm no foul. It would be nice if the “government’ by for and of the people was flexible enough to look at individual situations and officially allow septic hook ups if there is no negative impact for those who want to stay within the law. Some actually think that way so laws need to have some common sense. Cities or counties could also help with services to pump on a schedule those who use tanks or allow the service to be done by private companies. Cost effectively without waste.
There are real vulnerable people especially the aging suffering and without a place to turn. Shouldn’t government, our neighbors, be assisting wherever possible? Here is a link that shows the interior of just one model. Some would pay $200 per night to “glamp” in a lovely setting with one of these. Assisting our most vulnerable to own or rent one seems a no brainer. This is the top of the line company for quality.
https://www.granddesignrv.com/travel-trailers/transcend-xplor/240ml
Briefly regarding Stanky Ridge, if it goes forward the cost of well set and landscaped double or single mobile homes is also the most cost effective and can serve more people. As with trailers current mobile homes are not like those from days gone by. I sense a fire hose of wasted money is very possible with Evans Vista, or Stanky Ridge. Best thing is that with air quality it will be guaranteed to be affordable because anyone with a choice would not live in a stank cloud. Seems though that some horses are not connected to the cart of reality.
As far as the “golden rule” of impact others negatively and you have to go, why are city council, appointed mayors, and city managers exempt? I am thinking Cherry Street, parking and more, Ben. Funny world.
[Responding to Ben Thomas]
Then I guess many of us do not understand because I always thought that the term “elected leaders” meant just that.
In fact, if you go to the International City/County Management Association (ICMA) there is an entire section on, “Leading Your Community: A Guide For Local Elected Leaders”. A similar set of information can be read at the National League Of Cities website. Perhaps the city’s elected “leaders” should read it?
Then you state; “So in a way, we don’t even know what the people want from their elected representatives…” What?
Do not, or should I say, should not elected leaders seek out their constituents, and glean from them exactly what they want to see done in their community? Should they not “lead”, should they not be the voice of those who elected them? My bet is many across the board would like to “at least” see the city’s infrastructure maintained like the ever crumbling streets which in some areas are so bad they are a liability to the city.
As an elected leader who sees how destructive planning and management is being meted out by their elected and hired staff, should they be voicing with volume their concerns and perhaps even their disdain with the present “leadership”, no? Perhaps it is time for such elected ones to stand on their desks, and be loud as necessary. In this way, those who have given up on the city may make it back to the voter polls, and once again elect effective leaders.
And, If there are elected leaders who simply “go along, to get along,” then shame on them.
It is, perhaps, the city manager’s plan to ram through a $50M full service Y and revamp the Mt. View property with an eye to the fees and upwards of 10% of the cost of the project going to the city as contractor.
Then off to the banks to use real estate assets as collateral, some sleight of hand on growth projections and thence to a never ending cycle of debt.
However the council/manager dream is being moved along, it is not accounted for in the 10 year Capital Facilities Budget other than a $10M unfunded idea to review the Mt. View campus.
Electeds do allow for 3 min public comments from community squeaky wheels. But they turn to their hire for direction; the old soft shoe in the velvet glove moving his ambitious planning along with his managers and attorney as team players.
Council does have guidance and tools: the Comprehensive plan with adopted strategic plans, advisory commissions and committees that are meant to help synchronize the new with past planning and history so they don’t start over with each new group of electeds.
This small town is the object of desire – pave paradise, put up a parking lot.
BoatFix, you seem to have missed the point MJ Heins and I were making. You’re the one using the term “elected leader”. My point is that getting the first word (“elected”) does not necessarily grant you the second (“leader”). One has to earn that.
The first stage of Democracy (whatever version of that you may want to call it that we use) is voting for one candidate over another. In the lead up to that election, issues are discussed and the winner of that contest heads into office with something of a mandate of what they were running on having been in essence approved by the voters. Since we rarely have contested elections, the voters are not able to send electeds to office with that mandate.
The next stage is reaching out in the community and listening to members of the public that reach out to us. We hear all sorts of input that conflicts with many of the opinions expressed here. I try to reach out for diverse viewpoints that the others on Council might not be hearing, which is why I’m here. If you think the choices are obvious and that the public speaks with one voice, then you just aren’t paying attention.
Perhaps the term should be elected alleged representative, upgraded to elected representative if earned, then finally elected leader if earned. One star two star or three star council member.
Appointed mayors at times are represented to be leading council and at other times represented to merely function as a figurehead at events with gavel in hand at meetings with no more power than other council. Recent history shows mayors appointed by council who debase the alleged dignity of the office and city are free to do so with full support of a leaderless council.
The cart and horse aspect of Port Townsend’s unusual “city manager for life” system with no council term limits and an appointed mayor seems to devolve democratic leadership to an Autocratic Totalitarian system. Ignorant voters and sold out fourth estate are key.
Regarding elected council following public input, the Mess Tent (Mauroism/Orwell term “Streeterie”) fiasco where clear majority public input was absolutely ignored by unanimous council vote to serve special insider interests shows massive problems with both elected individuals and system. This was fully documented in many Free Press articles still available in archives.
This well documented situation shows the nature of City Manager, City Attorney, Council and Appointed Mayor who allowed and facilitated taking public assets for private interests. A perfect storm of folks coming together to give the middle finger to voters.
Can a leader emerge from this contrived dysfunctional group? Heading into the fray in a public forum is a start. Acknowledging mistakes and personal growth are the traits needed to earn the title of leader. Same with newspapers.
Just my take.
Harvey,
FYI
The.county does not allow people to reside in a travel trailer without an engineered septic. My best friend was forced to sell her property because of the exorbitant cost of the engineered septic system. As well, the county won’t allow rv hook ups to septic systems with the new legal lot of record ordinance.